15. Kingdom Come (2006): This one just makes me sad. Jay had retired, with such grand self-mythologizing flair, with the masterful Black Album and the almost-as-great all-star concert film Fade To Black. He stayed retired for all of three years, less time than superstar musicians often take between albums -- never mind the fact that he toured heavily, dropped a bunch of guest verses, and released a pair of collaborative albums during his fake retirement. Still, the final spotlight bow of The Black Album was so graceful that Jay's eventual inevitable return seemed like it should be great, like he'd only return if he had things that he deeply wanted to say. This was not, alas, the case. Instead, he came back with a weak and sleepy victory-lap of an album, full of aren't-I-great musings about the rise from poverty that he'd already recorded a ton of songs about. Musically, the album was all airy, moneyed, low-impact soul-rap, and Jay never saw fit to bring back even the slightest touch of his old viciousness. On "Beach Chair," he managed to make Coldplay's Chris Martin sound even less animated than usual. On "Dig A Hole," he deeply wounded old buddy Beanie Sigel's feelings in ways that wouldn't become apparent until years later. And on "Show Me What You Got," he fell asleep on top of a beauty of a celebratory Just Blaze track, something that became even more apparent when a peak-era Lil Wayne freestyled over the track and absolutely ate Jay's lunch. One saving grace: The righteous "Minority Report," on which he summoned real bile against George W. Bush's mangling of the Hurricane Katrina situation.

Back in 1990, an extremely young Jay-Z showed up wiggita-wiggitaing all over “The Originator,” a single by his fast-rapping buddy the Jaz. And between that moment and 1996, when he released his stately and ridiculously assured debut album Reasonable Doubt, Jay more or less disappeared. He spent a little while on the road with Big Daddy Kane, putting in hypeman duty, and even showed up on a 1994 Kane posse cut. And he appeared on tracks with guys like Big L and Mic Geronimo. But he was busy with other things, too. As legend has it, Jay spent most of his time, in those years, amassing an honest-to-god fortune dealing drugs. And when the fully formed Jay showed up on Reasonable Doubt, he showed the sort of unearthly confidence that debuting rappers so rarely display. This Jay was not even remotely hungry or uncertain in his rap style, and his whole bespoke-kingpin character may not have been too different from his actual self. In the midst of a ridiculously fertile moment in New York rap, he still stood out. And even in his least inspired moments, he hasn’t stopped standing out.

Jay’s great topic, in recent years, is his own meteoric rise from the corner to the Barclays Center owners’ suite. But he was mythologizing his own story even as that story was beginning. And he’s always seemed like one of our greatest rappers mostly because he was so convinced of his own greatness. For a while there, he was steadily cranking out a watershed album every year, and evaluating his entire catalog is something of a messy task. Even with that prodigious output, many of his most important moments have been on other people’s songs, or on albums other than his own. He’s given great tracks like “Who You Wit,” “Hey Papi,” and “Excuse Me Miss Again (La La La)” to the soundtracks of deeply shitty movies. “Jigga My Nigga,” one of his most iconic singles, belongs to the Ruff Ryders Vol. 1 compilation — a crew album from a crew that he wasn’t even part of. And his donation of “Is That Yo Bitch?” to Memphis Bleek ranks as one of the great acts of charity in recent memory.

Writing this thing, I’ve had to puzzle out what constitutes a Jay-Z album. I’ve included all four of his collaborative long-players, even the inexplicable live-mashup thing he did with Linkin Park. And I’ve also counted 2000’s The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, billed as a Jay-Z album even though it was more of a Roc-A-Fella crew effort. But I left off all the various compilations of his work. I left off the live Unplugged album, where the Roots so masterfully backed Jay up. And I even discounted the soundtrack to his near-unwatchable hood movie Streets Is Watching, since he only showed up on about half the tracks.

Listening back to all his albums, it’s striking how much musical ground he’s covered; from slick New York boom-bap to Timbaland future-funk meditations to Swizz Beatz Casio stomps. And it’s been fun to watch him evolve from bloodthirsty crime lord to wry and introspective elder statesman, even if he was making better records when he was a bloodthirsty crime lord. Even at his worst (Kingdom Come, obviously), he’s still a fascinating and magnetic figure. And you could easily make a case for any of those top five albums as Jay’s best.

This weekend, Jay completes yet another career milestone as he finishes his eight-show run at Brooklyn’s Barclay Center, a building that’s got his fingerprints all over it even if he only owns a tiny piece of it. That makes it as good a time as any to dig through the man’s deep discography.

I hear some version of this in the comments pretty regularly, and I never address it because one reply from me isn’t going to do much to change popular opinion, but I probably should try anyway, so here goes: As the person who edits these things, let me say for the record that there’s absolutely no internal policy guiding the writer’s choices in any of these lists. I’ve never said, “Hey, we all know Slanted is the best Pavement album, but slot it in at number 3 to generate some commentary.” No one here has. Nothing of the sort. The writers who do these lists know these catalogs backwards and forwards; all I ask of them is that they provide readers with as much historical and cultural context as possible, so these things aren’t empty clickbait but stand up as informative and illuminating works of analysis that provide value to the expert and novice alike. I’m honestly being totally transparent here. I’d be much more likely to ask a writer to re-work his or her list if it seemed deliberately contrarian than I would if it seemed painfully obvious. There’s no conspiracy at work, just differing opinions, you have my word.

I don’t think anyone really thinks you do it on purpose, it’s just funny because it seems to happen a lot.
If we are on the subject, I personally feel that this format overshadows the actual content that might be in these things. If you are being completely honest about the innocence of these lists maybe you should reconsider them because they do get a lot of attention but I think it’s mainly negative.

Don’t get me wrong, whining can be fun every now and then. Maybe 2-3 times a week is a bit too much. Do you think these lists succeed at being “informative and illuminating works of analysis that provide value to the expert and novice alike”? I think most readers check the ranking and stop reading after getting annoyed. I can honestly say I’ve done it more than once.

Instead of burying this in the comments section, someone should maybe think of starting every column with some form of this disclaimer. I just think titling something “*Blank* Albums From Worst to Best” implies an authoritative list. I love the concept, it’s just hard to get with the execution.

I’m sure it’s not deliberate, I just thought it was quite funny since for every other one of these features for a band/artist I like my favourite album (and the one popular opinion seems to support) has been 3rd. I do recognise that everyone has there own preferences and I really enjoy this feature and it has made me see a couple of albums in a slightly different light. Basically just ignore me for I am nothing more than a garden variety commenter who secretly makes my own versions of these features up in my head all the time.

I actually feel exactly the same about the first Blueprint. It’s kind of wonky as a whole, despite containing some of his best, most important work. It has cheesy moments and the production is actually starting to sound a little dated.

I’ve never admitted that before and it will probably be awhile before I admit it again.

Like seriously you guys, I don’t think I’ve every been so tickled by a list. When I saw the link to this post I immediately started writing a comment in my head about how Vol. 3 should be ranked higher. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anything but Reasonable Doubt or The Blueprint referred to as the best Jay-Z album.

Also, like the American Gangster is on the bottom third of the list. Didn’t The Fork give that a great review? I never thought that album was all that good.(thought the movie was kinda whack too)

You sure did! 8.6! I can’t even say it was a mistake, I haven’t listened to it in years, just remember not liking it.

Anyways, this list makes up for it. On the behalf of everyone who has unironically used the phrase “I’m so gangsta prissy chicks don’t wanna fuck wit me” in their day to day, I would like to thank you.

I really enjoy American Gangster. The highs are startlingly high and the whole album finishes on an incredible note (with or without the bonus trracks). But the album really takes time to get going. Outside of “Roc Boys” the album’s first half is a bit of a drag.

Yo, but you’re actually wrong, though. The entire middle of the album is filled with shitty filler that if any other artist put out, you would be saying good producers wasted beats and you wish that Jay-Z could get on them. Pop 4 Roc wouldn’t even have been good enough to get on a Memph Bleek album. The album is bookended by some really good tracks, but what goes on between them is a fucking mess.

Vol. 3 at number one, yikes. It looked like it was on the right track. I saw AG ranked at a rather low position and thought that the worst that could happen from here was ranking The Blueprint ahead of Reasonable Doubt. Thanks for relieving me of that worry.

I rank his top 5 as:

Reasonable Doubt
The Blueprint
American Gangster
The Black Album
Vol. 2

Vol.1 would probably be at six for me, and I wouldn’t disagree with anyone who would find it to be interchangeable with AG, TBA, and Vol.2.

No WAY is The Black Album better than The Blueprint. It might be a cliché opinion by now, but Blueprint’s my favorite Jay-Z album, and while I can understand people ranking Reasonable Doubt ahead of it, it’s impossible to deny that it runs circles around Black. Harumph!

So all of these lists are just revisionist, right, in an attempt to provoke discussion in the comments?

I mean the order of all these classic albums has already been long established — whether it’s Jay-Z or the Replacements. Why not just put Amnesiac as the best Radiohead album or In Utero as the best Nirvana album and see what people say? Not a bad schtick, but a bit manipulative and disingenuous, imo.

Michael, thanks for responding — and maybe my own response here is a bit too intemperate and not measured enough. Two thoughts — the first is that maybe writers describing their own personal experience with albums is perhaps misleading when considering the more objective, canonical implications of the title of this series. Is losing your virginity (or having some other intense personal experience) while such-and-such album plays really grounds for declaring it superior? As you admit, this series is about ranking solely by an individual writer’s personal preference, not wide-spread critical consensus or larger musical/cultural significance.

That would be fine, if these pieces picked their discrepancies wisely. But they just haven’t so far. There’s a legitimate tension as to whether Reasonable Doubt or The Blueprint is better; whether Slanted and Enchanted or Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is better; whether Tim or Let It Be is better – and so on. But these pieces seem to so scramble the rankings of albums so much by personal preference as to render that larger debate somewhat irrelevant. I mean, what’s the point of 50 comments all saying that Volume 3 isn’t the best Jay-Z album?

I’ve actually really enjoyed reading all these lists over the past several months. I particularly like how they’re presented as a single listener’s take on the artist’s output, rather than a voted-on staffroom consensus. Those are fine and all, but I love how these lists allow a writer to say “this is their best record and this is why I think so”. I haven’t agreed with all of them, but I never get the feeling these lists are trying to be disingenuous. It’s just that writer’s take on it.

For example, Tom defends Vol. 3’s merits as a record, but he also adds in the sentimental detail that it coincided with his own first move to NYC. While I obviously don’t share that experience, I can’t discount it; instead I can allow it to present a different opinion than my own, as well as an opportunity to re-assess a record that I’d frankly written off a long time ago.

And to be honest, isn’t that why we read these things anyway? Or is it just to reinforce our previously-subscribed-to opinions of recent musical history? To pat ourselves on the back and say “I already believed that _____ was _____’s best record and now I see that others believe it too, and therefore no more exploration is necessary”? That doesn’t sound fun to me.

I definitely see what your saying, Decibel did an interesting spin on this a few years ago. I forget what the segment was called, but it earned Kevin Stewart-Planko the moniker, “The Bravest Man In Metal” where he defended why he likes generally shit upon albums (i.e. St. Anger, Carcass’ Swan Song) and he had another segment where he basically shit on classic metal albums (i.e. At The Gates’ Slaughter of the Souls). I feel like that is far more effective than pimping a list as a definitive list.

I’m not mad at Vol. 3 being #1. I prefer Reasonable Doubt, but Vol. 3 is my second favorite.

The Blueprint is really overrated. It has its moments and you can’t deny it’s influence, but the lows are pretty low. When an album has a horrible song like Jigga That Nigga or The Ruler’s Back (a boring rehash of a Slick Rick classic), it hard for me to think of it as highly as most do.

when I read things like this “And I even discounted the soundtrack to his near-unwatchable hood movie Streets Is Watching” I really have to question the source. To call streets is watching, a hood classic unwatchable is just utter bs. opinion or not.

Oops, sorry – that was one of those “immediate reaction” posts. I went back and read the other comments only to realize that someone has already said pretty much the exact same thing. That’s the kind of thing that happens when someone randomly announces that Vol. 3 is the best Jay-Z album.

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